I am in the country on a visitors visa and have been accepted to college. Do I have to leave the U.S. and go to my country to change my status to an F-1 visa.

Please help.

Yes, yes, yeeeeeeeees !!!

As Jack stated...yes yes yes...UNLESS you told the visa office at the POE that it was your intention to change to visa status, and they made a notification on the back of your I-94.

Just out of curiosity, What country are you from? and my friend don't be disappointed when you find out it's not all gold.

Sorry guest, I don't know how my post got placed on a different thread, but it was for you on this thread.... ????? old age I guess

PS... if you told the POE that you intended to change to F1 visa after you got here, he would not have let you in. It's a big INS no no to ask for a tourist type of visa with the intention of usurping the process f1 visa process. I hope that was not your intent.
If you are legit and decided to attend an American school after you got here, then just go ahead and apply for the adjustment. I am not sure, with all of the security measures taking place , if they allow that at this time, but I have not heard that they don't.

Somewhere in this forum there was a posting by somebody who tried to adjust status from B-2 to F-1.
His petiton was accepted.
But it was taking so long, he got fed up, and wanted to go home.
Since his AOS was pending, if he left, he indicated, that it would be shown as if he had overstayed his B-2
If he stayed, he kept on wasting his time doing nothing.

There was a new law that came out last March or April 2002 because of the events of 9-11. Alien students should get F-1 visa from their country of origin before enrolling in any school in the US.

That's a fact. They SHOULD get it there. But, often they actually do come in as legit tourists and decide they like the American College and they apply for F1. I find nothing that says they can't do that anymore. Even the policies sited don't say they can't do that. Just that it would be difficult.

The ideal thing is to get that from your home country, but if you did not come here with that intention and later changed your mind, I find nothing so far that says you can't apply for F1.

If you can show me where that is placed into law or policy or even a memo. I applaud your efforts. So, far I have only seen that they CAN apply from B2 to F1. I would love to see where it says they can't.

Lorna, I hope you don't misunderstand. I am not saying the policy is not there, I am saying that I can't find it. If you find it, please post it. It would be very helpful to anyone thinking of changing status.